


Poisoned Kindred

by Tessrea



Category: Avengers, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Dubious Consent, Mind Control, POV Clint Barton, Protective Clint Barton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 14:03:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14357001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tessrea/pseuds/Tessrea
Summary: They could almost have been friends if there wasn't that one massive problem.Clint excels at everything he does, including being an unwilling villain/ servant





	Poisoned Kindred

Clint wakes up, confused and disoriented. He can feel the fading sense of another’s influence in his mind. The last thing he clearly remembers is a blade pressed to his chest and a burning cold flooding his heart and his mind. His head is full of disconnected snippets (oh god, did he blow up the Helicarrier?). He feels used, violated. He wants to lash out and destroy the being who used him. When offered the opportunity he eagerly joins the fight against Loki. After the fight, he avoids talking about his experience. He doesn’t want to acknowledge or examine the faint but undeniable feeling of loss whispering in the back of his mind. 

The debrief after the fight is agonizing. Shield is desperate for intel, but now matter how they try, Clint and Selvig can remember very little. What they do remember is disorganized and nearly incomprehensible. Loki cannot speak due to the gag, not they would have gotten anything from him if he wasn’t, and the mercenaries Loki had inexplicably found and hired had vanished. Fury looks like he is going to have an aneurism, but ultimately, he accepts that his questions won’t be answered. Clint and Selvig are released and the following day, Thor drags Loki back to Asgard in chains. 

Loki appeared infuriatingly unaffected by the situation. After the Avengers cornered him in the tower he asked Stark for a drink then just hung out like he was waiting for the bus instead of being gagged, chained and locked in a cell. Thor was nice, but everyone was grateful to see the Asgardians go.  
A week later, Clint was at home, showering away the sweat and aches of getting to spar with Captain Freaking America when memory hits him like a freight train. 

 

They drive for hours before Clint finds a place for them to stop. His new boss looks exhausted and is still favoring his side. They all need to eat. It is a cheap, disreputable motel that doesn’t ask them any questions, has clean sheets, internet and hot water. Loki brushes off Clint’s concern as he guides Selvig and the case containing the Tesseract to a chair.

Clint gets them burgers and starts very carefully putting out feelers to find them allies.

Selvig coos at the Tesseract, telling it was a perfect girl she is.  
Clint had hated that particular quirk of Selvig’s from the beginning and can’t stop himself from grimacing when he hears it. He is surprised to see the expression mirrored on the Boss’s face for just a moment. 

Clint had some time to think while they were driving and he is, on some level, aware he is being mind controlled. He remembers being loyal to SHIELD the day before and he remembers the icy cold feeling of his priorities changing after the scepter touched his chest. He is ok with it. He used to work for SHIELD but now he works for Loki. Nothing else matters. Clint will find them a hideaway and Clint will reach out to SHIELD’s enemies and the underworld contacts he had made during his previous career. Loki has a plan, and they will need help to pull it off. Meanwhile Eric sits on the bed in a crappy motel room and coos at a glowing cube. 

Clint sets up a meeting with a possible ally. A small HYDRA cell. At his tentative suggestion Loki readily agrees to come meet their contact. He knows that Loki can convince the fanatics to help them. As he and Loki prepare to leave he looks back at Selvig. The words are out of his mouth before he even finishes thinking them. “If we leave him alone with that thing, what do you think the odds are he’ll try to have sex with it?”  
Clint tenses, unsure how the god will react to him mouthing off. He is surprised when Loki fails to bite back a laugh and responds, “Just to be safe we should knock before entering any rooms.” 

Pleasure thrums through Clint at this weirdly positive interaction and he can’t help but note an odd sensation, like an echo at the back of his mind. A faint pulse of amusement and pleasure in answer to his own.

The moment is spoiled when Loki grabs his upper arm and the world turns inside out. They are suddenly in a dark alley not far from the warehouse where they are meeting their contact. However, it is a while before Clint realizes this, because the moment the world stops moving he falls to his knees and pukes his guts out. After another minute or so of his stomach heaving he becomes aware of Loki’s continued grip on his arm. He realizes that he is on the ground leaning against Loki’s legs and that the only thing keeping him even partially upright is the iron grip on his bicep. Shame floods him as he staggers unsteadily to his feet. “What was that?” he croaks. 

Loki frowns at him “Teleportation, that’s the worst reaction I’ve seen in a while.” Loki’s grip shifts to Clint’s shoulder as the god all about drags him over to lean against the wall of the alley. “Stay here.” The god vanishes without a sound and Clint is alone in the alley. The only light coming from the scepter leaning against the wall next them. He slowly slides down until he is sitting with his head against his knees, shivering slightly. A moment later he becomes aware of a hand on his jaw, raising his head to sip at a glass of water. “We were wrong, Selvig still had his pants on”  
Clint smiles despite the lingering nausea “small favors.” 

Their meeting goes off without a hitch. The HYDRA cell is easily convinced to join forces with a god. It doesn’t hurt that Loki can apparently sell ice to Eskimos. They can start working. 

Clint does only slightly better on the return trip. 

 

Clint is alone. The day has been exhausting. Loki said to tell him everything about SHIELD. In between sessions of their endless interrogation, he and Loki had teleported all over the world to get the components Selvig needed for… whatever he is building. Clint still heaves every time Loki transports them, but if he knows its coming he can usually stay on his feet. After the last trip Loki had ordered him get some rest. Clint can’t sleep, but he was ordered to rest so he lays on a bunk in their little hideaway and thinks. Several times in frenetic activity of the last 24 hours he has felt faint pulses of emotion that he is pretty sure, aren’t coming from him. He closes his eyes and cautiously reaches for presence in the back of his mind. It is shockingly easy. He can feel Loki’s presence. It seems the connection created by the scepter can go both ways. If he reaches just a little farther, he will touch Loki’s mind. He knows intuitively that if he does it will permanently destroy any barrier keeping Loki out of his thoughts. His mind will become even more of an open book as all his secrets spill out of him, faster than he could possibly speak. 

Clint knows that Loki has a plan. SHIELD will oppose him, and he knows better than most people how powerful shield is. He knows about the Avengers Initiative and is familiar with the beings that will be brought to bear against them. 

Clint thinks about the fact that he is one of only two people who can be absolutely trusted, and Selvig is too wrapped up in the Tesseract to help watch Loki’s back. Loki hasn’t used the scepter again. Clint wishes he would, so there would be more people he could trust. He is supposed to serve Loki, support his interests and follow his orders, but Loki won’t tell him the whole plan or how to help him. He can’t anticipate Loki’s needs if he doesn’t know what they are. 

He remembers the second to last trip he made with Loki that day. Loki had asked him about the bow and they had stopped in the middle of nowhere while Clint demonstrated his archery. Afterward Loki had looked at him clearly impressed and said, “I stumbled onto an absolute goldmine with you.” 

He remembers even earlier when his exhaustive account of everything having to do with shield had brought up Laura and his kids. Loki had stopped him and told him that if he wished to keep the details about his family private he was free to do so. Then Loki sat quietly and listened when Clint didn’t.

Clint reached out and let his thoughts touch Loki’s  
The flood of sensation was shocking and immediate. He felt Loki startle, and he became aware of the tight knot of anxiety in the gods chest and the sense of urgency. He could feel Loki in his mind, absorbing his memories and his knowledge. He wondered for a moment if Loki would drink his mind dry until he ceased to exist. Far away, barely connected to them he could sense Selvig, too wrapped up in the Tesseract to see, to know their master. Once his thoughts turned to Selvig he became aware of Loki’s quietly smoldering dislike for the man. Even more distantly he was aware of a throbbing agony behind his eyes and the feeling like a vise on his chest as his vision went black.

Awareness returned slowly. He became aware of Loki before anything else. He knew Loki was in the room with him even before he opened his eyes and saw him, sitting on the floor against the wall. Just out of arms reach. Clint didn’t know his thoughts as he knew Loki knew his, but he could feel the god’s fatigue and anxiety, and underneath that a thin thread of concern. He was so absorbed in his new sense of his master that he startled badly when the god spoke.  
“That was exceedingly foolish” 

Clint doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. Loki is inside his head. Hopefully the god would trust him with their plan now that he had demonstrated his commitment. He tries to ignore the pain radiating through him. He wishes he could sleep but they have so much to do. He climbs awkwardly out the bunk. His limbs are stiff and uncoordinated. 

“Soon Barton”

He can feel the urgency, the anxiety, radiating from Loki. He is amazed at how well the god hides it. No wonder he’s called the God of Lies. He has an even better poker face than Natasha. They will be leaving soon to get the iridium. Loki needs to release some tension. He has just finished the preflight checks on the jet he had “acquired.” He and Loki are alone. He stops the god from leaving with a hand on his arm and drops to his knees reaching for one of the many buckles of Loki’s outfit. He feels surprise and a low thrum of desire from Loki, followed quickly by a flash of dismay. Loki catches his wrists and steps back. “I appreciate the offer but that won’t be necessary”

 

He desperately tries to talk Loki out of his plan. There must be a better way to create a distraction than Loki getting captured. He tries to make him see that his plan is setting them up for failure. He won’t divide and conquer he will be giving them a common enemy and a teamwork dry run. After several minutes of arguing Loki silences him with a pulse of calm. For just a moment Clint feels like he has overdosed on valium. Loki’s hand cup’s his jaw and he whispers, “That’s the point.”

 

Just before Loki teleports to Stuttgart, Clint gives him one last warning “Phil Coulson may not look like much, but he is probably one of the most dangerous people in SHIELD. If you get the chance to kill him, you should probably take it.” Loki nods, wishes him luck and is gone.

 

Clint knows the second Loki notices Natasha. He can feel his interest and curiosity. Clint feels Loki’s amusement as their conversation continues. Then suddenly, surprise, a moments confusion and then fierce delight. It seems Natasha has outmaneuvered Loki somehow. It occurs to Clint that his master may have a tendency to self-sabotage. 

 

He realizes he has made a mistake just a moment to late to prevent Natasha from slamming him face first into the railing. It hurts. As he struggles to get up he can feel his link to his master dissolving. The constant, intimate awareness of Loki he has had for the past two days is fading. He clings desperately to the fragments of the connection even as he struggles to claw his way out of the well of forced servitude and twisted loyalty he has been drowning in for the last few days.  
“Tasha?”  
He feels Loki notice his struggle. Silently he asks the god for his help. He doesn’t want to lose the connection between them. Loki’s response is a burst of pure energy that severs their connection like a blade. Natasha hits him again. She could have saved him the concussion. He passed out the moment Loki cuts the scepter’s influence.

 

Clint comes back to himself. He is on his hands and knees, still in the shower. The water is cold, and his skin is prune-y. He turns off the water and gets a towel and sits shivering in his bedroom. His mind full of a thousand details he couldn’t remember an hour before, and the growing certainty that his desperate attempt to hold onto his connection with Loki, may not have been entirely unsuccessful.


End file.
